Celebrity Cook-Off returns to raise funds to combat cancer
It’s official — the Fayette County Colon Cancer Network (FCCCN) has been certified as the county’s newest non-profit organization, just in time for its annual fundraising event.
Celebrating a decade of raising awareness of the preventative measures of colon cancer, the FCCCN will host its 10th annual Celebrity Chef Cook-Off at 6 p.m. March 31 at Anthony’s Lakeside Party Center.
The purchase of a $40 ticket will allow guests to come alongside local chefs to support the FCCCN and indulge in any or all of the night’s taste temptations. Local businesses and community members have also donated items for auction, including a handcrafted guitar, dinner for six at a local restaurant and an autographed Hines Ward jersey.
President of the Fayette County Colon Cancer Network Kathy Rafail began the fundraiser with fellow survivor Joe Gentilcore as a way to generate funding that stays in Fayette County.
“I have been a survivor for 13 years. This is one way I can help to pay back all those that supported and prayed for me,” Rafail said.
Since the beginning of the event in 2002, the group has seen the number of preventative colonoscopies done in Fayette County increase tenfold.
When Joe Carei was undergoing treatment for cancer, his restaurant suffered and friends and family rallied around him by helping to cook meals. Carei says that it is because of early detection that he is alive today — and he hasn’t been resting on his laurels, either.
“In the 10 years I have survived colon cancer, I opened a new restaurant, had two children, sent my oldest daughter to study in Brazil,” Carei said. “I would have missed it all and some wouldn’t have been born.”
After Carei was back on his feet, he collaborated with Rafail in hopes of helping others in their community embrace early detection methods and fight the disease.
One of the first people they persuaded was Rafail’s husband, Rick.
“Three years after my wife Kathy survived, I got scoped and the found three polyps, one precancerous,” said Rick Rafail. “She saved my life. Now, I say ‘hope-you-scope’ and check it out, cut it out and shout it out.”
To date, the Celebrity Cook Off has generated the funds to give laptops to the oncology department at the Uniontown Hospital and begin payments on a $35,000 colonoscope used at the department.
“What we’re trying to do is, in a way, pay back the local doctors that saved our lives,” said Rick Rafail. “And the proof is in the pudding with awareness. If you get in early, everyone says you’ll do better.”
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Tickets for Fayette County Colon Cancer Network’s 10th Annual Celebrity Chef Cook-Off event can be purchased at hopeyouscope.com or at the door on the night of the event.